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Senior Advisor, Affiliate Strategic Planning

New York, New York, United States

ABOUT THE JOB

The ACLU seeks applicants for the full-time position of Senior Advisor, Affiliate Strategic Planning in the Affiliate Support and Nationwide Initiatives (ASNI) Department of the ACLU’s National office in New York, NY. This is a hybrid role that has in-office requirements of two (2) days per week or eight (8) days per month. 

The Affiliate Support and Nationwide Initiatives Department (ASNI) builds state capacity and strengthens and maintains the connections between the ACLU and its network of 54 state affiliates and the 1,500 staff who work out of the state offices. Their work constitutes an unparalleled bulwark in the defending and advancing of civil liberties and civil rights. The Department staff lead efforts to share knowledge, talent, and skill across the organization, building the next generation of civil rights leaders and positioning the organization for future challenges.

WHAT YOU'LL DO 

Reporting to the National Director, Affiliate Support and Nationwide initiatives, the Senior Advisor, Affiliate Strategic Planning is a senior role within Affiliate Support and Nationwide Initiatives (ASNI) responsible for strengthening the quality, rigor, and impact of strategic planning across the ACLU’s nationwide enterprise. The position exists to ensure that affiliates have the frameworks, tools, and guidance needed to define their priorities and translate them into coherent, executable strategies that build durable institutional capacity and advance the ACLU’s mission across all states. 

Working in partnership with affiliate leaders and national colleagues, the Senior Advisor helps steward strategic planning processes that integrate program strategy, organizational capacity, governance, financial sustainability, and power-building goals. The role supports affiliates in navigating complex organizational environments—including rapid growth, leadership transitions, labor complexity, and heightened legal and political risk—by using strategic planning as a disciplined tool to strengthen alignment, clarify priorities, and build long-term resilience. 

The Senior Advisor also serves as a connective function between affiliate planning and enterprise-wide strategy, ensuring that affiliates have access to relevant national expertise and information about national priorities while preserving affiliate autonomy in setting their strategic direction. Through this work, the role helps surface patterns, opportunities, and risks across the affiliate network to inform stronger coordination and learning across the nationwide organization. 

YOUR DAY TO DAY

Key Responsibilities 

Affiliate Strategic Planning Support 

Provide direct advising and facilitation to affiliates undertaking strategic planning processes. 

  • At their request, help affiliates steward their strategic planning processes, using a unified but flexible methodology grounded in organizational diagnostics, inclusive planning processes, equity considerations, and long-term sustainability.  
  • In partnership with other department teams, promote the integration of organizational capacity, governance, staffing, culture-building, program and campaign planning, power building, and financial sustainability goals in the planning process.  
  • Help affiliates translate strategic priorities into operational plans, milestones, and accountability structures that support effective implementation.  
  • Support affiliates in establishing lightweight monitoring practices that enable leadership teams and boards to track progress and adjust strategy as conditions evolve.  
  • Track strategic plan implementation progress and support course correction as conditions evolve.  
  • With department leadership, support executive directors in structuring board engagement in strategic planning processes, strengthening governance alignment around long-term priorities and organizational sustainability.  
  • Use strategic planning as a preventive leadership and governance tool, helping affiliates surface risks early, align leadership around priorities, and strengthen long-term institutional resilience.  
  • Operate as a trusted advisor to affiliate leadership, requiring regular access to sensitive organizational information—including financial conditions, leadership dynamics, governance matters, and strategic risks—while maintaining the highest standards of discretion and professional judgment.  
  • Maintain strict confidentiality and discretion when engaging with affiliate boards and executive leadership, particularly when this work involves sensitive matters such as organizational health, leadership transitions, financial sustainability, and governance challenges. 

Strategic Planning Systems and Portfolio Management 

Develop the tools, resources, and systems that enable effective strategic planning across the nationwide enterprise. 

  • Oversee and resource a vetted pool of consultants supporting affiliate planning processes, ensuring quality, methodological consistency, and alignment with ASNI planning principles while adapting to affiliate context.  
  • Develop tools and learning resources—including case studies and peer exchanges—that help affiliates address common planning challenges and share innovations, learnings, and effective approaches to scale across the network.  
  • Advise departmental leaders managing affiliate grant portfolios to strengthen the impact and durability of affiliate strategic investments; review and synthesize affiliate grant reports for department leadership.  
  • Develop and apply criteria to prioritize affiliate strategic planning engagements based on organizational need, timing, readiness, and potential enterprise impact.  
  • Provide lighter-touch advising, tools, or referrals when full planning support is not feasible.  
  • Consult with departmental leadership to ensure planning support is targeted where it will most strengthen affiliate resilience and long-term impact. 

 Affiliate–National Strategic Alignment and Coordination 

  • Ensure national priorities and opportunities are communicated to affiliates in coordination with relevant national teams.  
  • Translate patterns emerging from affiliate strategic plans into insights that inform departmental and national strategy discussions.  
  • Identify recurring structural challenges or emerging opportunities across affiliates and elevate them to department leadership to inform enterprise-level decision making. 
  • At affiliates’ requests, support meaningful national expert input in the affiliate planning process while preserving flexibility.  
  • Synthesize affiliate strategic plans, capacity assessments, threats and opportunities assessments, and organizational priorities into a network-wide analysis, identifying shared themes, trends, risks, and strategic opportunities.  
  • With the Strategy Office and department leadership, design and steward structured pathways for affiliate input into national strategic planning efforts, ensuring engagement is representative, constructive, and feasible at scale.  
  • Serve as a connective function between affiliate strategic planning and national strategy development, ensuring that consultation and synthesis inform enterprise strategy while respecting affiliate authority over their own priorities and plans. 
  • Serve as an ambassador to other National departments and affiliates about this work and its impact. 

Cross-Department Coordination and Leadership 

  • Work closely with Department teams to draw on special expertise and ensure coordinated and coherent affiliate-facing support, including identification of key opportunities for training, coaching, or facilitation support. 
  • Contribute to departmental strategy, frameworks, and continuous improvement based on emerging trends and patterns across the affiliate network. 
  • Partner with department teams to integrate best practice strategic planning approaches as appropriate. 
  • Contribute to the design and production of the annual affiliate Overview Survey. 

FUTURE ACLU'ERS WILL 

  • Be committed to advancing the mission of the ACLU
  • Center and embed the principles of equity, inclusion and belonging in their work by demonstrating commitment to diversity with an approach that respects and values multiple perspectives
  • Be committed to work collaboratively and respectfully toward resolving obstacles and conflicts

WHAT YOU'LL BRING

Qualifications 

Required 

  • At least 10 years of experience in strategic planning, organizational development, or a closely related field. 
  • Demonstrated commitment to the mission of the ACLU 
  • Demonstrated experience leading complex planning processes with senior leaders, boards, and multi-stakeholder organizations. 
  • Substantial experience working with federated, networked, or multi-entity organizations. 
  • Strong understanding of organizational systems, governance, budgeting, and people management in mission-driven organizations. 
  • Proven ability to work across lines of authority and influence without direct control. 
  • Exceptional facilitation, analytical, and written communication skills. 
  • Deep commitment to equity and inclusion organizational practices. 

Preferred 

  • Familiarity with labor relations, unionized workplaces, or rapid organizational growth environments. 
  • Experience partnering with legal, advocacy, communications, and political programs. 
  • Prior work with affiliates, chapters, or state-based organizations. 

Core Competencies 

  • Strategic and systems thinking 
  • Organizational diagnostics and planning 
  • Cross-functional collaboration 
  • Relationship management and trust-building 
  • Facilitation and influence 
  • Judgment in complex, high-stakes environments 
  • Ability to balance standardization with local context and autonomy 

COMPENSATION

The ACLU is committed to equity, transparency, and clarity in pay. Consistent with our compensation philosophy, there is a set salary for each role based on geographic work location. The annual salary for this position is $167,568.00 (Level E), reflecting the salary of a position based in New York, NY.  Salaries are subject to a regional pay adjustment if authorization is granted to work outside of the location listed in this posting.  
 
For details on our pay structure, please visit: https://www.aclu.org/careers/ACLU_Geographic_Pay_Structure-July_2024.pdf
 

WHY THE ACLU

For over 100 years, the ACLU has worked to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Whether it’s ending mass incarceration, achieving full equality for the LGBTQ+ community, establishing new privacy protections for our digital age, or preserving the right to vote or the right to have an abortion, the ACLU takes up the toughest civil liberties cases and issues to defend all people.

We know that great people make a great organization. We value our people and know that what we offer is essential not just their work, but to their overall well-being. 

At the ACLU, we offer a broad range of benefits, which include:

  • Time away to focus on the things that matter with a generous paid time-off policy
  • Focus on your well-being with comprehensive healthcare benefits (including medical, dental and vision coverage, parental leave, gender affirming care & fertility treatment)
  • Plan for your retirement with 401k plan and employer match
  • We support employee growth and development through annual professional development funds, internal professional development programs and workshops

OUR COMMITMENT TO ACCESSIBILITY, EQUITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Accessibility, equity, diversity and inclusion are core values of the ACLU and central to our work to advance liberty, equality, and justice for all. For us diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion are not just check-the-box activities, but a chance for us to make long-term meaningful change.  We are a community committed to learning and growth, humility and grace, transparency and accountability. We believe in a collective responsibility to create a culture of belonging for all people within our organization – one that respects and embraces difference; treats everyone equitably; and empowers our colleagues to do the best work possible. We are as committed to anti-oppression, anti-ableism, and anti-racism internally as we are externally. Because whether we’re in the courts or in the office, we believe ‘We the People’ means all of us.

With this commitment in mind, we strongly encourage applications from all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status and record of arrest or conviction, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.    

The ACLU is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual with a disability and need assistance applying online, please email benefits.hrdept@aclu.org. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.

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